PSYA02H3 Lecture : Chapter notes
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PSYA02H3 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Some mental disorders (especially less severe ones) appear to be caused by environmental factors or by a person"s perception of these factors such as stress or unhealthy family interactions. Many of the more severe mental disorders appear to be caused by hereditary and other biological factors that disrupt normal thought processes or produce inappropriate emotional reactions. Emil kraepelin (1856-1926) provided his version of a comprehensive classification system of psychological disorders. Psychologists stress that the most important feature of a mental disorder is not whether a person"s behaviour is abnormal but whether it is maladaptive. In general, mental disorders are caused by the interaction of hereditary, cognitive and environmental factors. Once genetic factors are identified, the scientist faces the task of determining the physiological effects of the relevant genes and the consequences of these effects on a person"s susceptibility to a mental disorder. Understanding cognitive factors requires identification of the origins of distorted perceptions and maladaptive thought patterns.
